


Control

by LiaIsInLove



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Anorexia, Anorexia Nervosa, Anorexic Niall, Anxiety, Anxiety Disorder, Control Issues, Depressed Niall, Depression, Eating Disorders, Gen, Hospitals, Loss of Control, Mental Health Issues, Mental Illness, Niall-centric, Passive Suicidality, Suicidal Ideation, Suicidal Thoughts, Trigger Warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 16:11:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4107034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiaIsInLove/pseuds/LiaIsInLove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why couldn’t they understand? He needed it.  Couldn’t they see that?  He needed to be in control.</p><p>Or the one where Niall has an eating disorder.</p><p>Massive trigger warnings for eating disorders.  PLEASE DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE ANY POSSIBILITY OF BEING TRIGGERED!!!!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Control

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to beg you here: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS IF IT MIGHT TRIGGER YOU!!! I promise, it's just fiction, you're not missing much. Real life is better. I promise.
> 
> If you do read this, please do not think that I am glamorizing eating disorders or mental illness. 
> 
> To those of you who do read this, do not fool yourselves into thinking that the issues I am discussing are at all romantic. Do not think that mental illness is merely a plot-line to be used to romanticize the suffering of characters and add drama to a plot. Because it is not. It is not something that you wish upon anyone, real or fictitious, and it is not something that you desire to have for 'attention.' Do not read this purely for the angst, and then go comfortably off thinking that this was a good story line. This is not beautiful, this is not fantasy, and this is not simply a plot-line.
> 
> This is about living with severe mental illness. It is from the point of view of someone who suffers from several mental illnesses, and subsequently may seem like it condones some extremely harmful and dangerous behaviors. This is from a perspective distorted by disease. THIS IN NO WAY WHATSOEVER JUSTIFIES, CONDONES, OR MAKES LIGHT OF ANY DANGEROUS BEHAVIORS OR THOUGHTS.
> 
> Eating disorders are some of the most deadly mental illnesses out there. They should not be poked fun of or made light of.
> 
> Alright, more notes at the end. But seriously. Please do not read if you are not in a safe place.

Why couldn’t they understand? He needed it.  Couldn’t they see that?  He needed to be in control.  Because everything in his life was chaos.  Everything in his life was moving too fast, blurring as it sped by him in a whirlwind of sound and color.  And it had all been decided for him, by people much smarter than he was, so there was nothing he could do or say to change it, because obviously they knew best. But the thing is, he had to have one thing that he was in control of.  In a world where he was told when to wake up, where to go, what to wear, what to say, how to act, he needed one thing that he could decide for himself. One thing that he could control.

It had started innocently enough, with him deciding what he could eat and when, but it had soon escalated into what he couldn’t eat and why, and from there it had transformed into how much weight could he lose and how fast.  It was like a game to him.  Only it wasn’t. Because one could just walk away from a game when it ended or lost its appeal.  But Niall couldn’t walk away from this.  It was his whole life.  And if he abandoned the game, he would surely die.  But if he stuck to it, he would probably die anyways.  But then again, maybe death wasn’t such a bad thing. Maybe death was the way out.

Niall hadn’t wanted to die when he first started his little game.  He had just wanted to have something of his own in which he was the omniscient, omnipotent being. But now that he was in the deadly throws of the game, he was beginning to see that death was the only way out. It was the ultimate escape. It was freedom.

At first it was all about eating healthy foods. It wasn’t that Niall was trying to lose weight; it was just that he’d constantly been told that he needed to be fit, he needed to be a role model, he needed to be functioning at the top of his game. And healthy food was the way to go. He ate three meals a day, no more, no less, and went to the gym for exactly one hour and a half three times a week. He had a weight lifting program that the boys’ trainer had given him.  After lifting, he ran on the treadmill for forty-five minutes, every time trying to go further and further distances.

At first it had been all about cutting out junk food and meaningless snacking.  It had been about getting in the best shape he could be, building muscle and improving his cardio.

But once they began touring again, their schedule got even stricter, and he had even less control of what he did every day. So Niall had made a rule for himself that he had to leave two bites left on his plate for every meal. He upped his gym visits to four times a week.  And for a while, that worked. Or at least, it helped. But as the tour progressed and he saw no cease to their endless schedule, he needed more.

So Niall restricted himself to two meals a day. The meal he skipped depended on which he could get away with most easily.  Whichever meal in which the boys had to eat on the go, or eat on their own.  It was so easy for him to go unnoticed; everyone was so busy after all, and Niall was stealthy. And it made him feel wonderfully, magnificently empty.  He felt light, weightless, exhilarated by his ability to do as he pleased, control his diet, lose his baby fat, and hide his secret from everyone. Niall began to love that empty feeling that came after skipping a meal.  He lived for it.  It made him feel alive like nothing else could.

Yet once they began the promotion for their next album, everything became crazier, and two meals a day was not enough. Niall started going to the gym every day.  He woke up at the crack of dawn, before the other boys, so that they wouldn’t get suspicious. And his sessions in the gym were great. He could sweat away all of his problems, and he could practically feel the fat dropping off his body. He was finally going to be skinny. He was finally going to be buff. He was finally going to be what management and the fans had always wanted.  He was finally going to be perfect.  

But that wasn’t enough.  Niall still felt wildly out of control.  Like he was being hurled through life without any power to direct his path, the obstacles flying towards him, or even his own body. It felt like he had no volition, no voice or say in his own life.  And he hated it.  His anxiety was astronomically high and the only time he ever felt even half okay was when he was restricting himself.  So Niall made more and more rules.

With such a hectic schedule, and no routine in which he could settle himself into, Niall began to rely on the rules he set. They gave him calm and order. He may not know what country he would be in tomorrow, or when he would next see his family, or even what he’d be allowed to wear, but he did know what he could and couldn’t eat. And so the rules began piling on.

Niall couldn’t eat meat; too many calories, too much fat.  He couldn’t poison his body with anything with potatoes, wheat, or corn in it; too much starch, too many meaningless carbs.  Niall wasn’t allowed to eat anything yellow, tan, or brown; those were untrustworthy colors. Niall could only eat things that were smaller than the size of his fist.  Niall was only allowed to drink water, no milk, no juice, no fizzy drinks, and definitely no alcohol; way, way too many empty calories.  Niall had to wait twelve hours between each meal (it takes twelve hours for the body to start feeding off of its fat).  Niall needed to write down every morsel of food that crossed his lips.  Niall had to know the calorie content of the food he ate; he wasn’t allowed to eat anything in which he didn’t know how many calories were in it.  Niall was only allowed to have a maximum of 500 calories a day. Niall could only eat foods that had a fat percentage of less than thirty percent.  Niall needed to eat with his non-dominant hand, and he could only use a fork and knife, no spoons; foods that required spoons had way too many calories.  Everything Niall ate had to be cut up into twenty-two pieces, no matter how small. Niall was only aloud to have eleven bites per meal.  Niall had to chew each bite at least ten times.  Niall had to take three sips of water in between every bite. Niall needed to put down his fork and knife between every bite. Niall must weigh himself before and after eating. Niall wasn’t allowed to eat after 8:00 at night, and he wasn’t allowed to eat before 8:00am. Niall had to drink at least one glass or bottle of water every hour, but could not chug them, he had to sip them slowly to stave off the hunger and boost his metabolism. Before every meal Niall had to drink two glasses of water.  Niall’s meals must be less than 200 calories each.  Niall was not allowed to eat out of a box or jar; his meals must be eaten off of a plate.  On weekdays Niall could only eat vegetables.  On weekends Niall could only eat fruit.  Niall must weigh himself before he went to sleep and after he woke up.  Niall’s meals had to take at least twenty-five minutes.

There were so many rules that Niall could barely keep track of them.  But he had to obey them. He had to obey them. And if he didn’t…Niall didn’t know what would happen without his rules.  All he knew was that his rules were the only thing keeping him sane. Without them, he’d be spiraling out of control.  And Niall needed to be in control.  So he kept making more and more rules.

And Niall was drowning in his rules. His brain was awash with thoughts only of calories, and rules, and food, and loosing weight, and staying in control. He didn’t have room for anything else. Because he needed this. He needed this so bad. Without it he’d die.

And of course everyone had noticed. Of course the boys caught on to Niall’s strange and obsessive behaviors.  Of course the eagle-eyed fans honed in on the way his eyes were hollow and dead, the way his clothing hung off his body in sheets, the way his skin was stretched taught across his face, the way his joints seemed too big for his body, the way his hair was falling out, the way he would hunch over in concerts and interviews, grasping his stomach as the waves of unendurable pain swept over him.  Of course the media and tabloids spotted the immense amount of weight that Niall lost. Of course the tour team noticed how Niall never seemed to have the energy to do anything anymore, how he barely had the strength to hold his head up.  Of course management noticed how Niall was too weak to make it through concerts. Of course the whole fucking world noticed that Niall James Horan was sick, terribly, deathly sick. But it wasn’t until too late.

By the time that everyone realized that Niall needed help, he was already on deaths doorstep, weighing a terrifying 5 stone 2 pounds. He could barely walk, and his heart was just days from giving out.

And he had been shipped off to the hospital, where he was put in the ICU and held down as the doctors tube-fed him. And they had taken everything away from him.  They had taken away his one way of coping, his one way of making the world and his crazy life make sense. And Niall hated it. They force-fed him, sticking a tube down his throat and pouring in disgusting amounts of fattening poisonous calories. They restricted him to his bed—he could barely walk anyways—and watched him round the clock. They took away everything. And Niall was left lying broken amongst the shattered pieces of his life.

**Author's Note:**

> THERE IS NO SHAME IN ASKING FOR HELP. If you or someone you know is suffering -- and I mean suffering -- and struggling with an eating disorder, I urge you to please seek the help that you deserve. I promise, you deserve it.
> 
> International Resources:  
> http://www.eatingdisorderhope.com/treatment-for-eating-disorders/international
> 
> U.S. Resources:  
> http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/resource-links  
> http://www.anad.org/eating-disorders-get-help/eating-disorders-support-groups/
> 
> Online Resources:  
> http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/online-eating-disorder-screening  
> http://www.b-eat.co.uk/get-help/about-eating-disorders/information-sheets/
> 
>  
> 
> I need you all to know that you deserve to be happy and healthy. You deserve to laugh, and love, and smile, and sing at the top of your lungs, and dream, and fall in love with life and with living and with yourself. You deserve to believe in yourself. You deserve to meet other people who recognize and appreciate how amazing and lovely you are. You deserve to want to get better. You deserve to get better. You deserve the whole entire world. You deserve it because you are kind, and intelligent, and important, and lovable, and so so incredibly loved. You deserve it because you are you. 
> 
> If you ever need someone to remind you of this, or you need someone to talk to, or encourage you, or believe in you, or if you just need a friend, know that I am always here for you. Don't ever think that you are alone, because you are not. You can find me on tumblr at lia-is-in-love.tumblr.com
> 
> I love you all so much and I hope that each and every one of you find the happiness and peace in life that you deserve.
> 
> Lots of love,  
> -Lia


End file.
